apiuEN

TRADE AND INVESTMENT PROMOTION AGENCY RANKED AMONG TOP 25 WORLD AGENCIES

Trade and Investment Promotion Agency according to the newest World Bank research is for the first time ranked among top 25 Investment Promotion Agencies in the competition of 181 countries.

FIAS Global Investment Promotion Benchmark (GIPB) index measures efficiency of national agencies under the criteria of informativeness, web page appearance and contents, as well as the productivity of managing foreign investors? inquiries. Assessment was made by independent foreign experts in period between May and September 2008, without prior notice of the research.

It is important to notice that APIU has found itself along with very developed countries like Austria, which is at the same time ranked first, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Great Britain etc. As for the transition countries, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary and Czech Republic are along with Croatia ranked among top 25.

Status of foreign investors

According to the Company Act, domestic and foreign companies conduct their business activities under equal conditions. A foreign investor may establish, or participate in the establishment of a company and may acquire rights and/or obligations as any other domestic investor. Foreign investors, with the headquarters or residence in a land not being a member of WTO, need to meet the reciprocity condition.

The national treatment is applied to all forms of foreign investments, which means that the foreign investors, when executing their business activities, are considered to be domestic legal entities with all rights and obligations as applied to domestic investors.

The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia provides several guarantees for foreign investors. It is specially enacted that all rights acquired by the investment of capital can not be restricted by law or any other legal act, and that the foreign investors are guaranteed free transfer and repatriation of the profit and invested capital.

A foreign party who wishes to purchase real estate in Croatia can be granted such a right only subject to the condition that the same right is granted to Croatian citizens in the domicile of such foreign party. A foreign party may establish a company in Croatia which can, as a domestic legal entity, purchase real estate without any restrictions.